Project – Page 3 – The Robot Group, Inc.

More on the Megabot Army

The Megabot robot series is a design for a muti-purpose utility robot. Project members, Norm Annal and Glenn Currie, developed a design similar to that of a toy robot, but on a much larger scale. The design specifications call for the robots to be made of plastic and dense foam. There will be different models and they will range in height from 8 to 24 feet tall. Sensors will provide an array of interesting sounds and dazzling light effects.

Megabot Proto 1

The Megabot Proto 1 was the first prototype of the Megabot series. It was constructed from recycled materials and off-the-shelf items. This robot demonstrates that robots can be built from very inexpensive materials like cardboard.

Let’s begin at the base. The oversized eet and legs are carved from corner strips of foam packing material using a razor blade. The leg pivot-points rotate on PVC tubing, and turn inside bushings made of plastic tubing cut into short lengths, which are then sunk into the foam lower limbs and lower torso. Cardboard from pizza boxes and shipping cartons were used to reinforce these leg and foot parts. The cardboard is attached to the foam pieces with glue and sturdy toothpicks.

The feet are modular and easily replaced . They are also constructed of foam but with are reinforced with a fiberglass coating. A cardboard-covered foam wheel is embedded in the rear of each foot. Each wheel rotates on PVC tubing which also connects the foot to the lower leg bone and the forward-lifting shin bone. A microswitch, inserted into the bottom of each foot, will be linked to a sound chip to produce mechanical sound and/or the activation of warning lights during foot movement.

The lower torso houses the motor and battery power for the robot’s movement. A battery operated socket wrench serves as the motor unit. A small bicycle gear, welded to a 1.12 diameter socket, turns a larger gear which then moves the offset rotating cam. The cam is constructed from PVC tubing. A small length of bicycle chain is also used. The gear box is currently constructed from layered and shaped cardboard which proved to be too weak and flexible to maintain the rigidity required to keep the gears apart. Stiffer cardboard or plastic-coated cardboard could solve this problem as well as the flexing of the PVC and compression of the foam.

The upper torso is made completely of cardboard and is easily removed and replaced with other upper torso designs. This robot is designed with a lot of modular components so that it can be easily changed.

The head piece is a plastic helmet filled with foam, a battery pack and small lights. It is mounted on a PVC tube for side-to-side rotation. The foam neck section pivoted forward and backward. All this weight proved to be too much for the motor and gear box in the Megabot Proto 1.

Plans were made to lighten the load for the second prototype.

Megabot Proto 2

For Megabot Proto 2 (MP2), the robot design went almost entirely to a cardboard-based unit. The legs and feet were constructed only of cardboard eliminating the heavier foam pieces. The cardboard material was cut and glued at right-angles to add strength to the design. The motor and gear box unit were removed from the MP1 for use in this second version. No major modifications were made in the original design for these pieces.

The upper torso again is completely cardboard. The hand and finger digits are carved foam with sturdy toothpicks for the pivot points. The digits can be manually positioned now but plans are to have them servo-controlled.

The head piece on the MP2 also went to the lighter cardboard version eliminating the plastic and foam from the first prototype. The MP2 head and arms are intended to be covered and eventually used for molds for mass production of the Megabot Army. Small servos could be adapted to move and control the head and arm pieces.

This version of the Megabot, the MP2, successfully walked for a brief period in a test work-session. The test walk proved that the design concept is good. Additional work is needed to replace parts where stronger materials are to be used, for example, in the gear box unit. In general, all the high-stress points on the robot should have stronger or plastic-coated cardboard.

The current robot shell on the MP2 is very impressive looking. The robot face appears to be an animal snout and the side profile shows pointed dog type ears on the head piece. The cardboard pieces were painted black and the eye socket areas are set back and painted red. The complete head piece gives the appearance of a space helmet for a robot dog.

The leg and lower torso units are also painted black while the upper torso unit is blue. The PVC pieces are painted red and the foam pieces on the hand were painted yellow.

Norm put over 1,000 hours of time into this project individually cutting and molding each of the pieces for the two units. In addition, he did the design illustrations for the project. Glenn also assisted in the design and work.

Megabot Army

The Megabot Army was an attempt to build a 6 foot tall robot out of regular cardboard that you would assemble by folding (akin to the manner in which you would assemble a cardboard file-storage box).

“When we give demos at schools, the kids always ask about a robot kit. Robots get expensive very quickly.”
Glenn Currie

Norm Annal did much of the design which was fed into AutoCAD. The output file was used to drive a CNC prototype box-cutter at Capitol Container in Buda TX just south of Austin. Capitol Container cut about a dozen of the robot kits for us and several have been assembled and used in various displays.

The nice thing about having the drawings in AutoCAD is that we can adjust the size easily. One 3 foot tall version of the Megabot was built. I need help on this project. It has been in the attic since Robofest 7. Many thanks to Capitol Container – those folks can make anything out of cardboard.

Schwa Stay Awake Sumou Robot

Inspired by Bill Barker’s Schwa drawings this little bot was designed, by Tom Davidson and Sonia Santana, for RoboFest 5’s Robot Sumou Tournament.

The Robot Sumou Tournament was inspired by the wildly popular robotic competitions in Japan. The official Robot Sumou have very strict design rules. The object of the competition is very simple – push the opponent out of the playing field circle.

The rules of the sumou robot competition are as follows :

The area of the base of the robot can not exceed 20cm by 20cm before the game starts. This means that the height is not limited and it may spread after the competition starts.
The weight of the bot can not exceed 3 kg.
Use of internal/external combustion (ignition) engine is prohibited.
Intention to harm the opponent or the Dohyou (playground which includes the competition circle) is prohibited.
The way to control the bot is free, but divided into two categories – Radio Controlled and Stand Alone.

The Stay Awake Sumou robot was designed from a Blackfoot Radio Controlled (RC) truck motor and RC transmitter. These were its most expensive parts and replacement cost for the RC vehicle is estimated at $200.00.

Hobby tires were purchased for the back end and Lego tires were used in the front. Lego bridge pieces were used to design a front-end steering drive using servos.

The 20 cm x 20 cm requirement made it pretty difficult to put very much in the bot’s base. Everything inside the shell is pretty tightly packed, including a six cell battery gel pack.

The exterior wedge design was chosen for offensive strategy reasons. It seemed, from our research, that a lot of the winning designs in the Japanese competitions were wedge-shaped. The wedge shape prevented the ‘bot from being turned over and, it was hoped, would help the ‘bot get under the competition.

The shell housing is a roof ceiling exhaust duct that was hacked down to the size requirements. The rough edges were smoothed out by filing and the old reliable standby, duct tape, was used to cover the base edges. Cost of the shell was about $5.00.

The decorative antennae and clear plastic dome on top were pieces bought at garage sales for about $3.00. The dome unit had an array of LCD lights that blinked to make it appear that the Schwa had some thinking process going on. It also provided the area for the RC antennae to come out.

The Schwa symbol stickers were purchased from the Schwa Survival Kit by Bill Barker that was distributed by the late, great FringeWare. The bumper sticker on the backside which covers most of the back area says “Whatever Happens Do Not React!”

Kids loved the ‘bot and many wanted their very own.

Since the motor driving the Blackfoot truck is pretty beefy, the Schwa Stay Awake ‘bot was very fast. Our hope was that, once it got in the ring for the competition, it would be able to flee any opponent and be fast enough to react quickly to any threat.

That was true for the most part. The difficulty came in the realization that our motor had insufficient power to push its opponent out of the ring. It would engage the opponent maneuvering quickly to take the side-attack approach.

The winning robot however, had quite a bit of mass and was almost immovable by Schwa. The winner, a Vadim Konradi design, had a very strong wheel chair motor.

It was a doomed competition from the start, a tortoise and the hare type match-up. Vadim’s sumou ‘bot was slower but steady in its determination. Schwa could run circles around him but did not have enough real power to push him out of the arena. It became a matter of time : batteries would drain or time limits would kick-in.

Realizing that it could not win, Schwa surrendered itself to its more powerful opponent and the Konradi ‘bot steadily pushed it out of the ring.

The Stay Awake ‘bot was not fazed however; it quickly resumed its duties entertaining the kids in the crowd who delighted in running after the funny looking RC ‘bot.

The Robot Group Coloring Book

The Robot Group Coloring Book [2 MB PDF download], by Norm Annal, was released in 1994.

It was a great effort to document designs of various group projects that were either already completed or still in the works. This book is pretty rare as there were only a few hundred copies printed.

Norm is a talented CAD graphic artist with a background in mechanical design. Norm also designed The Robot Group logo.

The Robot Group, Inc. logo, color version (copyright to The Robot Group, Inc., design by Norm Annal).

His schematic drawings of our projects have always been of extremely good quality and accuracy. This book is far from being a simple coloring book. Norm put in a considerable amount of time in assuring that this project would be both artistic and educational.

The Robot Group Coloring Book - Flying Sphere — Flying Sphere, by Dave Santos & George Parks, an illustration from The Robot Group Coloring Book

It documents 14 group projects with 16 original drawings of such favorites such as Varmint, Bipedal Ornithopter, Flying Sphere, Dolphfan, Mark IV Blimp, and Dweebvision.

The Robot Group Coloring Book - Dolphan — Norm Annal’s Dolphan, an illustration from The Robot Group Coloring Book

The book was sold at RoboFest 5 and distributed to various schools during outreach visits.

The Robot Group Coloring Book - Bipedal Ornithopter — Dave Santos’ Bipedal Ornithopter, an illustration from The Robot Group Coloring Book

RoboCacing

Wan Yik Lee‘s RoboCacing was an amazing, fully-autonomous robotic worm which moved like a leech until provoked.

It was approximately two-and-a-half feet long with a metallic, segmented body covered with bristles used to sense its environment. Two antenna at its head probed for front obstacles. On sensing danger through its bristles, it sped-off to escape. Different responses were produced for different sensations received through its bristles and antenna.

RoboCacing (from ‘robotic’ and ‘cacing,’ the Malay word for worm) was built specifically for RoboFest 5 (1994).

Mark IV Cybernetic Airship

The Mark IV Cybernetic Airship, aka Mark IV Neural Net Scanning SONAR Blimp was next in the evolution of the blimp projects.

Craig Sainsott designed and built the blimp under carriage. Alex Iles and Bill Craig were responsible for the electronic and computer implementation. John Lovgren developed the neural network learning program. Brooks Coleman was the training pilot. Read more of the technical details on blimps.

Flying Sphere

Model aviation guru, George Parks, built the Flying Sphere aircraft in collaboration with aviation artist, Dave Santos.

George selected a thick slow speed NASA airfoil for the RC prototype.

The overall impression of the Flying Sphere design was that it flew about as well as conventional designs. It had interesting structural and aerodynamic qualities due to its relative absence of wingtip vortices, its spread mass, and its peculiar “rolling ball” landing style.

Flying Sphere detail — At left is the wreckage from an early crash. The center photo, by Karen Pittman, shows the repaired aircraft. At right are various small prototypes by Santos. One version, a sort of “pendulum kite” on a monofilament and bamboo pole was a mind-bender at Austin raves in the late eighties.

This project was one of several designed by David Santos to demonstrate far-fetched concepts. Others were a boat that sails directly into the wind, a rain-powered vehicle, the ProtoAndroid, and the Bipedal Ornithopter, a flapping-wing flying machine that runs on legs to take off.

Intellectual property statement – Patents pending. Designs protected by copyright. Noncommercial personal and educational use encouraged.

The background material for this page is derived from an archived page on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. Some links may have been added, removed, or updated.

Dolphan

Dolphan was a project by Norm Annal, inspired by the work of Dave Santos

The Great Wall O’ Gizmos

The Great Wall O’ Gizmos is a continually-growing exhibit of interactive junk art technology by Brooks Coleman. It made its debut at RoboFest 4 (1993).

The boxes in the wall are modular and can be stacked and connected in different ways. A multitude of clocks, sequencers, lab timers, and dishwashing machine timers turn dissected appliances and gizmos on and off like crazed monkeys.

This is another creative use of recycled material from our resident junk yard art genius.

Rover

Rover, another Wan Yik Lee creation, was a homebrewed robotic base powered by two motorized wheels which were controlled based on differential velocity. A SONAR system was mounted on top of the base.

The base had a dedicated microcontroller to allow it to accept various motion commands through a serial port. Encoders wee mounted on the motors to provide motion feedback.

The SONAR system consisted two parts :
a) a ring of sixteen uniformly-mounted Polaroid SONAR transducers, and 2) a microcontroller with two Polaroid SONAR drivers to accept various sensing commands and to control the operation of the sensing system.

The SONAR ring was adjustable to a height between 30 inches to 38 inches and could be programmed to sense according to various schemes.

Rover had been dressed up as a space-age android, and exhibited as a human transporter in RoboFest 4 (1993) and RoboFest 5 (1994). It served hundreds of human drivers using a Nintendo joystick controller as the interface for motion command.